Alice of Old Vincennes

								

the world; something that may be described as a bookish cast appearing
oddly in the midst of phrasing distinctly rustic and local,--a
peculiarity not easy to transfer from one language to another.
Jean the hunchback was a muscular little deformity and a wonder of good
nature. His head looked unnaturally large, nestling grotesquely between
the points of his lifted and distorted shoulders, like a shaggy black
animal in the fork of a broken tree. He was bellicose in his amiable
way and never knew just when to acknowledge defeat. How long he might
have kept up the hopeless struggle with the girl's invincible grip
would be hard to guess. His release was caused by the approach of a
third person, who wore the robe of a Catholic priest and the
countenance of a man who had lived and suffered a long time without
much loss of physical strength and endurance.
This was Pere Beret, grizzly, short, compact, his face deeply lined,
his mouth decidedly aslant on account of some lost teeth, and his eyes
set deep under gray, shaggy brows. Looking at him when his features
were in repose a first impression might not have been favorable; but
seeing him smile or hearing him speak changed everything. His voice was
sweetness itself and his smile won you on the instant. Something like a
pervading sorrow always seemed to be close behind his eyes and under
his speech; yet he was a genial, sometimes almost jolly, man, very
prone to join in the lighter amusements of his people.
"Children, children, my children," he called out as he approached along
a little pathway leading up from the direction of the church, "what are
you doing now? Bah there, Alice, will you pull Jean's leg off?"
At first they did not hear him, they were so nearly deafened by their
own vocal discords.
"Why are you standing on your head with your feet so high in air,
Jean?" he added. "It's not a polite attitude in the presence of a young
lady. Are you a pig, that you poke your nose in the dirt?"
Alice now turned her bright head and gave Pere Beret a look of frank
welcome, which at the same time shot a beam of willful self-assertion.
"My daughter, are you trying to help Jean up the tree feet foremost?"
the priest added, standing where he had halted just outside of the
straggling yard fence.
He had his hands on his hips and was quietly chuckling at the scene
before him, as one who, although old, sympathized with the natural and
harmless sportiveness of young people and would as lief as not join in
a prank or two.
"You see what I'm doing, Father Beret," said Alice, "I am preventing a
great damage to you. You will maybe lose a good many cherry pies and
dumplings if I let Jean go. He was climbing the tree to pilfer the
fruit; so I pulled him down, you understand."
"Ta, ta!" exclaimed the good man, shaking his gray head; "we must
reason with the child. Let go his leg, daughter, I will vouch for him;